I promised last month to write more about my recent sector placement with the Chaplaincy Department at the Royal Surrey County Hospital. Over a period of three weeks I spent the equivalent of five days working with the chaplaincy team as they provided a service to the patients, relatives and staff at the hospitals they cover. During my time I spent most of my time shadowing one of the chaplains on their ward rounds, offering communion to those who had requested it and visiting very poorly patients and their families. I also attended the weekly palliative care meetings and went to visit one of the residential units near Woking for people with mental health problems. I also attended the weekly Eucharist when the reserved sacrament was consecrated for use in the following week on ward rounds.

Throughout my time on placement I was constantly struck by the skills and consideration from all the people I met. It really was a caring community. The Macmillan Nurses stand out in my mind. The word "nurse" is really a misnomer and fails to adequately describe the real skills and extensive training they have. One of these nurses led the weekly palliative care meetings that reviewed, on an individual basis, new and ongoing patent care to ensure the best possible physical and emotional care was available to people with cancer at all stages of their illness. One of these nurses co-ordinates the work of the hospital healthcare professional team that included a social worker, dietician, occupational physiotherapist and ward nursing staff. I could see real care and concern for every aspect of a patient's well being. The chaplain is an essential member of this team and the importance of spiritual care alongside medical care is readily accepted.

During my time with the chaplains I was struck by some essential differences between their ministry and that normally exercised in a parish to a single faith based church community. In a hospital setting there is no opportunity to develop long term relationships with patients or their families, though some patients do return on a regular basis. The staff is the only community with whom the chaplains can develop ongoing links. The hospital is also a place where there are people of many and no faiths. The Church of England chaplains take the lead in enabling individuals and groups in this health care setting to respond to spiritual and emotional need and to the experiences of life and death, illness and injury, in the context of a faith and belief system. Pinned to the wall of the chaplains' office are contact numbers not only for Roman Catholic priests, who can be paged and attend when needed, but also for faith leaders of other Christian and non-Christian religions. There is also a most useful handbook giving detailed advice and guidance on any special considerations needed for the various religious groups in terms of diet, washing, prayers last rites and post-mortems to ensure that spiritual needs are met and not inadvertently overlooked.

What underpins all this pastoral work by the Chaplains is prayer and we commenced each day by saying Morning Prayer in the Chapel and reminding ourselves that our human caring is based in God's care; we care for each other because God cares for us. Whatever the faith of an individual, and for some that was known to only them and God, it was very apparent that each person mattered and was offered the best of spiritual care by the chaplains. I could see parallels within our own parishes and the way that the church engages with our own community. As Christians we follow Jesus who said "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." (John 20.21). We are called to serve God's mission by living and proclaiming the good news. "It's not the church of God that has a mission, but the God of mission who has a church". For Christians God's mission is about transformation - transforming individual lives and transforming communities. God's mission is revealed by the Holy Spirit in three ways: through the Bible, through the tradition and life of the Church, and through our own listening, praying, thinking and sharing as we respond to our own context. The challenge for us as a church is to find the appropriate response in our own parish community.

Spiritual care, especially for their community, was also very apparent for the Muslims centred on the mosque complexes we visited when I spent a week in Birmingham recently taking an in depth look at the Islamic faith. But the story of that week and my reflections are for another month.